Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has signed a directive to promote the development of digital enterprises in Vietnam with a target of developing 100,000 tech firms by 2030.

Digital transformation is creating new development spaces – digital economy, digital society and e-government – based on rapid expansion of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, Big Data, machine learning, deep learning, block chain, cloud computing and the Internet of Things.

This process opens up a great opportunity for Vietnam to make breakthrough developments, quickly catching up with developed countries which have already started the transformation.

The Vietnamese Government was pushing this process and digital enterprises – which adopt, transfer, study and develop products, platforms and solutions based on digital technology – would play a key role in the transformation process, the directive said.

It asked Vietnamese digital firms to take the lead and create a breakthrough in the implementation of the “Made in Vietnam” strategy – an important policy which encourages Vietnamese enterprises to make products instead of assembling, gradually mastering creation, design and production, while creating new services, solutions and business models.

By 2030, Vietnam needs at least 100,000 technology businesses to develop the digital economy, build smart cities and e-government, promote the adoption of digital achievements in all fields and implement nationwide digital transformation.

The directive points out four types of digital businesses that need to be focused on. They are big corporations, commercial and services enterprises that shift operations to digital technology and conduct research and investment in core technology; IT firms that have built brands and pioneered in researching and developing digital technology and production; startups that apply digital technology to create new products and services; and innovative startups in digital technology.

These firms are expected to help Việt Nam become an industrialised country with rapid and sustainable development, reaching the goal of becoming a high-income economy by 2045.
The Prime Minister asked ministers, heads of ministerial-level and Government agencies, provincial authorities and leaders of State economic corporations to focus on 12 solutions.

Among them is building a national strategy for the development of Vietnamese digital enterprises by 2030, which will be submitted to the Prime Minister this year. Each sector and localities need to build their own action plans for 2021-25 and 2026-30.

One of the most important tasks is to develop a controlled test policy framework for new products, services and business models that apply digital technology and submit them to authorities for promulgation in 2020-21.

Authorities should formulate policies and solutions to create markets for digital enterprises, including startups developing programmes and projects related to e-government, smart cities, smart production and agriculture.

Studying and proposing a development fund for Vietnamese digital enterprises with private capital mobilisation and reporting to the Prime Minister this year was also on the list. In the next five years, the programme must support at least 5-10 companies to develop a number of key digital products which will become the pillar of Vietnam’s tech enterprise ecosystem.

The directive also required developing at least 5-10 digital technology platforms that could be shared to promote the application of digital products in socio-economic fields and put in use before 2025.